


Deja vu

by Youremyalways



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Brothers, Hurt/Comfort, Season 15, The Cage, ghost - Freeform, ptsd sam
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-19
Updated: 2019-10-19
Packaged: 2020-12-24 05:11:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21093947
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Youremyalways/pseuds/Youremyalways
Summary: Adam is back. Sam is forced to recollect upon the time they spent in the Cage.———“There’s no good way to talk about this, so I guess I’ll just dive right in.” Sam started, almost robotically, “I know Adam a lot more than I’ve let on, and… it’s because of the Cage.”“You’ve never…” Dean had to cough to clear his throat, “you’ve never talked to me about the Cage before.”





	Deja vu

**Author's Note:**

> This was just bouncing around in my head and I really wanted to get it down on paper. I’ve always been curious about Sam and Adam’s shared time in hell, so... 
> 
> Feel free to leave some love :)
> 
> Thanks guys xoxoxo

“Adam.”

Sam felt his stomach sink to the floor as he watched the skinny man with blonde hair emerge from the group of ghosts before him. Every ounce of breath in his lungs flew out of his mouth and suddenly he was back in the cage. He felt his knees buckle below him, but before he could fall, two firm hands grabbed either of his shoulders and pulled him up.

“Sammy?” Dean’s voice cut through his shock and Sam immediately shook his head to clear the fog.

“I’m good.” He nodded and swallowed, tensing even more when Adam stepped closer.

“Yeah, sure.” Dean scanned his face with a skeptical raised brow, but then he turned his attention, “We should talk to Adam. I’m guessing he has a lot to say about us.”

Sam winced and stepped back, shaking his head and blurting out, “Dean, I need to talk to you in private for a moment.”

His older brother jumped a little in surprise, flicking his gaze around for a moment before hesitantly responding, “Okay…”

Sam turned to Cas for a moment, “Be right back.”

Then he was grabbing Dean’s bicep and pulling him towards the building towards their right. It only took a few moments, but once they were inside, Dean waved his head and gestured with his hand towards Sam, “So?”

“I can’t be here when you talk to Adam.” Sam confessed, his tongue running over his front teeth as he crossed his arms uneasily over his chest. 

“What?” Dean’s eyebrows furrowed as he tilted his head just barely, “Why not?”

The younger Winchester sighed and finally looked up, his voice rushed as he dismissed, “Look, there’s stuff you don’t know about. I just need you to trust me on this. Please.”

Dean immediately shook his head and stepped a foot closer to his brother. His hazel eyes glazed over Sam’s face, taking in every worried line. A sense of anxiety and confusion started to twirl in the pit of his stomach- He hadn’t seen Sam so torn in years. Maybe even since Gadreel. He wished with every bone in his body that he could just take Sam’s lead on this one and believe his brother, but Sam was hurting. Dean couldn’t turn his back on that.

“I’m sorry Sam, I’m gonna need more than that.” He sighed, hoping the genuine remorse he was feeling was apparent in his voice.

Sam tucked his head down and when he brought it back up, his eyes were pleading.

“Dean, please.”

Dean groaned soft enough that Sam wouldn’t hear before pressing, “It’s the end of the freaking world. I can’t go on bare trust right now, especially when I thought we gave up secret keeping a long time ago.”

Much to Dean’s expectation, Sam reacted to that last phrase. His younger brother straightened his back and raised his eyebrows, almost in challenge.

“It’s not a secret,” He immediately denied before shrugging, “It’s…”

Dean watched Sam trail off and felt frustration creep up his spine, “What?”

Sam’s voice was soft as he responded with a sad smile, “You don’t want to know.”

“Tough.” Dean crossed his arms.

“Okay.” Sam let out a deep breath in defeat, “Okay, fine. You might want to sit down.” 

“Uh-oh.” Dean laughed a little, humorlessly, “The sit down is never good.”

Nonetheless, he pulled a chair out from the table next to them and sat down. He watched with skeptical eyes as Sam sat down on the table across from him so that he was still above eye level. 

“There’s no good way to talk about this, so I guess I’ll just dive right in.” He started, almost robotically, “I know Adam a lot more than I’ve let on, and… it’s because of the Cage.”

To say Dean was surprised was an understatement. Not about Adam and Sam being in the cage together, because really, who couldn’t have inferred that? It was because Sam had  _ never  _ talked to him about the Cage, and Dean never mentioned Sam’s time in hell aside from vague references. It was strictly taboo. Sam didn’t want to share, and Dean wasn’t going to push him. It was clearly a very sensitive topic and if ignoring it helped, then ignoring it was what they’d do. Dean straightened in his chair as he tried to get some arrangement of words together, his top teeth coming down to bite his lower lip as discomfort rolled through him.

“You’ve never…” He had to cough to clear his throat, “you’ve never talked to me about the Cage before.”

Sam nodded slowly, acknowledging that fact before starting in a whisper, “I’ve never talked to anybody about the Cage before, Dean. There aren’t really words. The things I saw, the things he did… I can’t describe it.”

A dark haze slipped over his face for a long moment, his eyes glazing over like the memories were a movie right in front of him. His adam’s apple bobbed in his throat before he took a deep breath and continued.

“Plus, there’s too much at stake. I can’t bring all of that crap to the surface because what if what happened the last time happens again? I can’t go through that a second time, and I certainly can’t put you through that again.”

Sam rushed passed that part, and Dean understood. He didn’t like thinking about the time after Sam’s wall broke down either. But the whole ‘swallowing all of your pain down’ was typically Dean’s thing, and he’s not a huge fan of Sam taking that lead. 

“I just don’t like the idea of you swallowing all of that crap down and dealing with it alone.” Dean admitted, letting it sink in for a moment before shaking his head and getting back on subject, “But wait… how does that make Adam not like you? Didn’t you suffer together? I would think if anything, you’d be closer.”

“Yeah, maybe.” Sam almost laughed a little before tilting his head and sighing, “You know time… time works differently in hell.”

Dean swallowed, dread filling his chest as he realized where this was going, “I’m aware.”

Sam nodded in confirmation, turning away from Dean to stare at his lap.

“So, When I was down there, or when my soul was down there- I’m still blurry on that whole thing- it was a year for you up here, but for me, in hell…” He closed his eyes and held onto his words for a long pause, debating whether or not to lie. He settled on the truth with a harsh breath, “It was a little over a hundred years.” 

Dean’s jaw dropped in tandem with his stomach.

“A hundred?”

Sam once again nodded.

“Yeah. Uhm, they separated us a lot of the time, me and Adam. Individual beatings. It was different everyday.” 

Before Sam could get much further, Dean interrupted “They being…”

He wasn’t sure if he really needed to ask the question, or if he just needed Sam to stop talking about  _ that _ for a second so he could collect himself. Dean wasn’t sure he’d ever be over that ‘hundred years’ bombshell. How the hell could he have never know that? How could Sam hide that for so damn long? 

“Michael and Lucifer.” His brother clarified, oblivious to the turmoil ripping through Dean’s head. 

Dean shook his head in an attempt to clear his thoughts for a minute to listen to his brother. He begrudgingly confirmed, “Right.”

“So, they’d separate us a lot.” Sam continued upon affirmation, his eyes scanning over his hands, which were folded in his lap, as he spoke, almost as if he was reading the words, “I think part of my punishment was the isolation. No interaction with anything other than the devil. Maybe he hoped I’d develop some sick, twisted version of stockholm syndrome, but it never came to that.”

Tears started to pool in Dean’s eyes as he listened to Sam talk. They weren’t in danger of falling, but they created a glassy surface over his irises that would give him away completely. Dean had been to hell. He  _ knew _ torture. But Sam? Hearing about Sam in pain would always be a hundred times worse than feeling his own. Always. 

“About thirty years in, the archangels started getting bored, or something like. Torture still sucked, but it was all physical. My body was starting to regulate the pain, get used to it. They wanted to do something else, push us further. So, cage fighting matches. Me versus Adam. Winner avoided the… the chair.” 

Dean shook his head at that, closing his eyes for a second to set the tears back as confusion plagued him. 

“The chair?”

Sam nodded minutely. His eyes were still downcast, but Dean could see the gray clouds that took over his irises. His brother’s words came out like a prescription, completely emotionless. He had to create distance between himself and the Cage, otherwise it would overtake him. He had to pretend it didn’t affect him. Pretend that it was all okay- that he was okay. 

“It had hooks attached to the top that came over my head and held my eyelids open so I couldn’t blink or look away. I can still feel the cold steel digging into my skin, my eyes so dry I couldn’t even…” Sam cut himself off with a breath, like he was afraid of saying too much before picking up his words somewhere else, “Barbed wire handcuffs around my wrists and ankles. There were… pliers. Lucifer, he has so much strength. More than a hundred other angels combined.”

Sam’s eyebrows furrowed and suddenly the robotic tone in his voice was gone, quickly replaced by short, harsh breaths. His eyes widened and his fingers began fiddling frantically with the seams on the sides of his jeans. His voice was rushed and haggard. Dean knew the moment his mannerisms changed that Sam was back in that place. He was remembering it so clearly that he could see it. His panic was completely visible.

“He’d… he’d pull on my leg until it broke off at the thigh.” His voice cracked just slightly through his breaths, “The fibers of my skin and bone would just snap completely. Toe after toe, fingers, arms, legs. I didn’t even think that was possible, but in his world… whatever he wants to happen comes true.” 

“Sammy-” Dean tried to stop him, bring him back, console him.

He failed. 

Sam continued.

“Every day whoever lost was put in that damn chair for hours on end. Maybe days, I could never really tell. Adam was just a kid, Dean.” And now Sam, Dean’s Sam, was starting to come back, his panicked breaths fading off and bringing him back to reality, “We dragged him into it, I couldn’t… I couldn’t let him lose. I deserved it more.” 

Dean sighed and brought a palm up to his forehead. He didn’t want to ask. He knew Sam. He knew what the answer would be. Still…

“Sam, don’t tell me you were stupid enough to let him win.”

A pregnant pause followed, and when Sam finally did reply, there was a certain pride to it.

“Every time.” 

But Sam having pride doesn’t mean that Dean didn’t want to throw up. 

“Christ.”

Sam didn’t even nod this time, just sat there silently, waiting for Dean to speak. 

“Wait, I don’t get it.” He did just that, and was surprised when Sam actually brought his gaze up to meet Dean’s, his eyes curious, “If you saved Adam, and took that kind of torture for doing it, why the hell would he be mad at you? As far as I’m concerned, he should be kissing your ass!”

Sam shrugged like it was the simplest thing in the world. “Because I got out.”

Dean furrowed his eyebrows even deeper, “I don’t follow.”

“Dean, I was taking all of Adam’s beatings for nearly seventy years, and then I left. I left him alone with two pissed off archangels and only one toy to play with.”

_ Oh. _

Dean ignored how light his head was becoming and the nausea filling his stomach. God, he couldn’t blame Sam for always thinking shit was his fault, I mean, Dean had the exact same tendency, he just wished Sam didn’t have to suffer through it as well.

He said the only thing he could and meant every single word, “It’s not your fault.”

Sam just scoffed and gently shook his head, like Dean’s words were empty and trivial.

He wouldn’t have that.

“It’s not.” Dean emphasized, a little louder and much more confident, “He’s the one who let you take all of those beatings, Sam. He is certainly not in the clear. And whatever Michael and Lucifer did to him, that’s on them.”

Sam just shrugged, “I don’t think he’s gonna feel the same way, Dean.”

“Well that’s too bad for him, because we’re in the real world now, Sammy, and in the real world,” Dean let a proud smirk creep up onto his lips, “You can kick his ass.” 

Sam shook his head, clearly not finding any humor in his brother’s words. Shadows were racing over his face, dragging pain and remembrance across his eyes.

“You know, maybe he has a right to be mad. Maybe…” Sam looked away from Dean and brought his gaze back down to his hands, “Maybe I should have stayed.” 

Dean shook his head in denial and let out an agitated, frustrated groan, “Come on, Sam.”

The younger Winchester shot his gaze back up to Dean and now there were tears painting over his irises, making his eyes glassy.

“I’m serious.”

“So am I!” Dean yelled, immediately feeling guilty and lowering his voice when Sam flinched, “Cas is the one that got you out, I was the one that got your soul back, if Adam wants to blame anyone, he should be looking at us.”

“It’s not on you.” Sam knitted his eyebrows together and spoke with more confidence than he had the entire rest of the conversation.

“Well, it’s not on you either.” Dean whispered, reaching up to place a firm hand on Sam’s shoulder, forcing his gaze to land fully back on his own, “Shit happens Sam, all the time. We’re all here now, right? And you are never,  _ ever _ going back to that cage.  _ Ever. _ I can promise you that.” 

Sam opened his mouth to answer, but before he could, the door squeaked open and both of them turned their attention to it.

“Guys?” Cas walked into the room halfway, eyes scanning over both of them as if he was trying to figure out if it was a good time. He cleared his throat as he took in their glassy eyes and announced softly, “Adam wants to talk to you.” 

“Good.” Dean replied immediately, pouting his bottom lip out as he nodded before turning to Sam, “We are going to handle this together. Got it?”

Sam tilted his head and sighed, “Dean…”

“Got it?” Dean repeated, louder.

Sam’s posture fell, shoulders sinking in. He closed his eyes for a moment and swallowed down his worries and objections,“Fine.”

He and Dean stood up simultaneously, and right before turning towards the door, Sam turned to look at Dean one more time with a grateful gaze.

“Together.”

  
  



End file.
